Day 351 Out and about the island

It blew most of the morning so we wanted  to wait till it quieted down before we went ashore so we spent the morning reading and doing small jobs on Zephyr.  A nice salad for lunch and with it calming down, we took off in the afternoon for Fossil Bay on Sucia.  We decided to take Puff  around the islands shoreline instead of walking over as she's equipped with Dragon, our new Mercury 8hp engine and it needs more use to get it broken in.  She started right up--of course, it helps to turn the switch to "ON".  Some day I'll remember to do that before I start pulling that cord.  I think I'll just leave the switch to "ON" and turn it off with the button on the end of the throttle stick in the future.

We putt putted around the South side of Sucia past Snoring Bay to Fossil Bay.  A very pretty bay but a bit shallow for Zephyr.  As a matter of fact, as we returned to Puff after our walk, a sailboat that had just pulled up to the dock where we were, had run aground and was having to wait for the tide to come in before they could move.  As the tide was already on the rise they would only have to wait about another hour to get unstuck.  We'd read in one or our books not to tie up to the dock where they were.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take my camera so we'll have to go back to show you what the area looks like.  Sucia has large formations of sandstone throughout the island and the rock formations that result from decades of erosion from wind and water have made some  incredible displays.  

After a nice walk, we took off in Puff for the ride home.  The winds were light and chop of the water was light so we got home nice and dry.  As it was after 1700 hours and beautifully sunny, we had some wine and cheese in the cockpit.  

We have two other boats in our anchorage.  One that showed up the same day we did and a catamaran that showed up yesterday.  Both are on mooring buoys out farther in the bay.  We were also joined yesterday by a small Coast Guard boat attached to their own buoy in the middle of the bay.  Their engines ran far into the night but they were far enough away that unless you were on deck, you couldn't hear them.  We were surprised that the other two didn't have their anchor lights on last night.  The rules are pretty clear.  Unless you are tied up to a dock, you must have a white light at the top of your mast on from sundown to sunup.  This way, any boats arriving after dark can see where all the other boats in the anchorage are and avoid them.  Oh well, not my problem.

We had a nice quiet evening watching TV and playing with the furr people.  Today, I'll be running our generator to recharge the batteries.  We've found that we can watch TV in the evening and even with the Webasto heater and our refrigerator system, we are in pretty good shape in the morning as far as amps go in our batteries.  It takes a few hours to get everything recharged but it's better to run our little Honda than our engine.  Far more efficient in the charging of our batteries and other equipment on Zephyr.

We sent an email to Bill and Susan, the previous owners of Zephyr to see if we can stop by on Saturday so they can see all of what we have done.  Being at Sucia, we are just a few miles from where we started our adventure almost two years ago.  Zephyr has under gone quite the transformation.  For the most part, she looks the same on the outside--except for the fuel tanks and big spinnaker pole on deck, but inside, down deep, the systems have been pretty much been replace or updated.  Lots of new switches, wires and equipment.  She's pretty well packed with equipment and provisions for our trip.  There's no longer a lot of spare room aboard.  Hopefully we will hear back today as after this weekend, we will be heading North to Canada and won't be back here till early July at the earliest.

It's supposed to be nice and sunny today.  So far, not so much but the day is early.